


I Can’t Fucking Breathe

by Cerfblanc



Series: Ready Player One : Prompts [2]
Category: Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 09:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14210604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerfblanc/pseuds/Cerfblanc
Summary: Six months later, with the damaging memory of the stack explosion still fresh in his mind,  Parzival has established taking the odd panic attack within the OASIS is slowly becoming a normality.





	I Can’t Fucking Breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RandomNerd3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomNerd3/gifts).



> This fic was requested by @Random_nerd :) hope you enjoy! (feel free to request in the comments section, thanks!)

He had been doing this for a while now.

He had been trying to blank it all out, and he had done so for the past six months of living a completely new lifestyle—virtual and non-virtual.

For Parzival, the OASIS was now more of a coping mechanism rather than a getaway game. With the current changes that have already been happening with the donations he and everyone else had agreed to give, the OASIS was now nothing more than just a game.

Which it was.

It _was_ a game.

At one point it was a place that was defined as another reality—a man-made reality—when really, it was just like any other program. This one just happened to have millions invested into it.

Parzival had been trying his hardest to believe that. But so far, nothing has seemed to suffice the veiled trauma he’s been experiencing. The OASIS was now something he could hide in (it always had been, but the value in it had grown stronger than it last was), somewhere to pull the whole world over his head, a blanket to suffocate the underlying anxiety, somewhere to mentally drown himself for a few of hours.

If his friends knew what he thought of it now they’d definitely have him see a psychologist—if Aech thought falling in love in the OASIS was unreasonable, then what would he—well, _she_ —think of this?

Parzival is slumped against a cream sofa situated in one of his many hideouts, a pixel-generated copy of a book from the early twenty-first century in his hands. Out of everything he could be doing in the OASIS, he was reading. There were no books in the real world. As in, there were none in his possession.

Rather than battling out every problem under the sun with the ‘missing millions’ Parzival had come to the conclusion that taking the occasional time to read and isolate himself was a relaxation.

But reading didn’t take away trauma.

He closes the book and sets it aside on the glass coffee table. He breathes. He sits up properly, wonders if Art3mis would call him soon, to ask where he was. An hour ago he said he’d meet up with her and Aech.

Maybe neither of them had called in because they knew he really wasn’t up for doing anything.

Parzival closes his eyes.

_It has been six months ever since Nolan Sorrento sent out drones to my apartment._

_It has been six months since the explosion._

_Six months since thirty people or more had died within my stack._

_Six months since Aunt Alice and Rick—_

“Just— _fuck_ ,” the words slip from Parzival’s lips almost automatically, his tone of voice disoriented with feeling, and for a moment, beneath everything within the damaging memory, he forgets how to breathe.

He doesn’t notice that his heart is thudding at an erratic pace, that he’s receiving chills left-right-and-centre up his spine, and that his stomach is knitting itself tight. He was sure his intestines were being ground up by a pestle at this point the feeling was that vivid, even online—if anything it felt worse, because everything was so fucking intensified.

“Oh shit,” He’s contemplating if he should call someone for help. “ _Shit_.” He tries to swallow, but his throat has closed up. “It’s fine.” He’s cold. And warm. “Everything’s fucking _fine_.” It’s a hot flush of panic that sets him off.

_I can’t fucking breathe._

He should really just log off right now— _no, we are so not doing that, that’s ridiculous_ —because virtual reality definitely isn’t meant to be apart of the human routine— _but has there ever been an order to things?_ —there _used_ to be— _now that we have this sort of technology are we ever going to revert backwards?_

_Definitely not._

 

  
⋆ ⋆ ⋆

 

  
The panic attack lasts twenty minutes or so.

Or at least that’s what Parzival thought.

A fraction of him believed it lasted a solid hour.

He’s still sat on the sofa, somewhat warm, cross-legged, the cushiness not really a comfort anymore, and he feels like sleeping the episode off. To do that he’d have to pull himself out of the OASIS, tear off the real comfort, the coping mechanism that numbed the trauma, and he chooses not to. He wasn’t sure how he’d react to it afterwards. Next thing is he’d be hyperventilating.

Parzival tries to chuckle at the thought, at himself, he tries to laugh at the underlying weakness, but what leaves his mouth is far from a laugh. It’s a painful sort of noise that emits.

He runs his hands through his silvery hair, feels how static the consistency is.

_I feel like a fucking narcissist._

“I’m not though.” He utters and licks his lips. “I don’t think I am.”

_Yeah, I’m fucking losing it._

Parzival sighs. His heart had returned to its one-two-one-two slumber, and he could feel his body slowly warm back to the temperature of approximately thirty-seven degrees.

He bites his bottom lip, sucks in a shuddered breath, closes his eyes momentarily and— _Aunt Alice is peeking her head into the laundry room, Rick is cursing in the minuscule kitchen space, and they’re still the same as they were in reality, except they’re both dead._

Parzival opens his eyes and feels his gut plummet.

He couldn’t get his head around the memory. You’d think six months was enough for mourning, but that didn’t seem to be the case. He couldn’t understand the feelings he felt when he was met against the heat of the fire that ignited out of thin air—in a dreamlike state of mind—and the way he had to backtrack his steps in order to not get crushed.

The strain that lay in his gut was all for Aunt Alice. As neglectful as she seemed, Parzival had to accept the fact that she was family and that he missed her deeply—the same went for Rick (to an extent), excluding him being a total prick for the few years they had known each other, but it would be wrong to not forgive him, especially now with him gone. If anything Parzival _knew_ that he cared as much as Aunt Alice did, Rick just never showed it, and besides, what had Parzival ever done?

Now here he was sulking for the hundredth time in the OASIS over their deaths.

The tears didn’t just go for them, though.

There were more people that suffered that cause.

The tears went for everyone else, too.

 _It’s happened now_ , Parzival thinks, _and there’s nothing more to it._

For the duration of six months he had been saying those words like a mantra in his head.

It’s _happened_ now.

_If I can’t do anything, nobody can. If no one can do anything, maybe nothing is meant to be done for it._

“Maybe it was _meant_ to happen.” Parzival idly utters under his breath.

_After all, the world wasn’t designed to go backwards._


End file.
